My best friends on my team are my toughest competitors when we ride together. We had a 70 mile hammerfest last Saturday where we all tore each other to shreds. No race scheduled for this weekend in Oregon meant that we all got to wail on each other for a while after three straight weeks of weekend racing where half the team wanted to take it easy.

Then we sat down afterwards at the coffee shop and laughed at each other's stories of the day.

And when it comes time to race, we know each other's strengths and weaknesses so we can ride effectively as a team.

This is why I ride. For the experience of trying to hold the wheel of a person two Cats above me up a hill or beat them to a town line sprint. For pushing my limits to pull the group at 20 mph into a 25 mph headwind. There is nothing like the end of the ride, talking with friends, exhausted after a hard ride, telling each other stories about the last race or how hard that hill was or how difficult it was to see the group you wanted to stay with ride off without you.